October 5, 2015
Yes, it’s that time once again when I publish a blog post that may not be up your alley if talk about sex makes you blush.
But considering the extreme popularity of the podcast, “How To Get Fit For Sex“, and previous articles like “How To Make Your Penis Stronger With A Private Gym“, and “The Top 10 Foods & Supplements To Boost Drive“, I decided to ask my friend and sexual health expert Jordan Gray to once again make a guest appearance here on BenGreenfieldFitness and fill us in on sexual stamina and bedroom endurance.
After all, whether you’re a guy or a girl, most of us have experienced that moment in the bedroom when something just gives out, whether it’s your glutes, abs or thighs burning so badly you can’t keep going, a tendency to orgasm too soon or not orgasm at all, or feeling as though you simply don’t have any stamina for anything more than a one-and-done sexual experience.
And that’s no fun, right?
So in this article, Jordan is going to dish out seven of his best tips for being able to go the distance when it really matters: tips for both men and women, and tips that a happily married couple (like my wife and I, pictured above in a photo taken just yesterday) can use to enhance our love life, our physical and spiritual connection, and our sweaty sexercise sessions.
Take it away, Jordan.*
*By the way, when I publish guest articles like this, it usually means I'm off doing some crazy, masochistic event in the wilderness. In this case, I'm racing Spartan World Championships, and you can follow all the action and oh-so-much-more on my Instagram and Facebook pages.
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You know what’s great? Sex.
You know what’s even better than sex? Great sex.
We do so much to keep our bodies and minds in shape, but do we ever give our sex lives the same level of priority?
We hide behind common excuses like “Sex is supposed to fall to the wayside when you’re married/after a few years of being together.” And, in truth, this carries just as much validity as “You’re supposed to get saggy and feel low-energy after the age of 30.” That is to say, it holds zero truth unless you tell yourself that it does and live a life that reinforces that belief.
So, while you could argue that there are no muscles that are exclusively used for sexual purposes, I have found that these following exercises are the best for increasing both sexual pleasure and sexual stamina in men and women of all ages.
Without further ado, let’s jump right in.
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Sex Exercise #1: Progressive Muscle Relaxation
Did you know that one of the fastest ways to speed up your approach to orgasm is to tense your major muscle groups and to engage in more shallow breathing?
You can use that knowledge to either push yourself over the edge into sexual climax, or to do the opposite (relax your muscles) to slow your oncoming peak of sexual arousal.
For many men, the ability to have greater control over their fast-approaching orgasm and ejaculation is beneficial for them and their partner. So the exercise to implement for this one is best done outside of the bedroom when you’re by yourself.
Progressive muscle relaxation is the process of tensing a body part or set of muscles for a couple of seconds, and then releasing that body part and allowing it to relax deeper than it had been before you tensed it. By consciously putting your awareness on the muscle group in question, your muscles can then voluntarily let go of the tension that they were holding before you brought your attention to them.
Here's how to do it…
1. Select a comfortable sitting or laying position.
2. Point your toes and then flex your feet upward. Hold as hard as you can for 3-5 seconds and then fully relax.
3. Tense your lower legs, knees and thighs. Pull knees to your chest. Hold and relax.
4. Tense your lower back, buttocks, stomach and pelvic area.Hold and relax.
5. Tense your lower arms, elbows, and upper arms. Tense your fingers and hands. Make a fist. Expand your fingers. Hold and relax.
6. Tense the upper back. Hold and relax.
7. Tense your chest by taking a deep breath. Hold and relax.
8. Tense the neck, back, and front of your neck. Hold and relax.
9. If you don’t have neck and back problems, or get frequent headaches, press your hands across your forehead while pressing back with your head.Hold and relax.
10. Shrug, as though trying to touch your shoulders to your ears. Touch each ear to your shoulder.Hold and relax.
11. Now tense your entire head. Make a grimace on your face so that you feel the tension in your facial muscles. Hold and relax. Afterwards, open your eyes and mouth as wide as possible.Hold and relax.
12. Finally, try to tense every muscle in your body. Hold very hard for a slightly longer period of time, 8-10 seconds, then relax. If you find any remaining tension, target it with an extra hold and relax., if needed. Feed your body with several slow, deep diaphragmatic breaths, and enjoy the relaxation.
By the time you finish an entire session (generally taking anywhere from 3-10 minutes) you’ll be melting right into the ground. In this comprehensive article on relieving stress, Ben gives you some free audio resources that will walk you through this entire routine.
The reason you want to do this outside of the bedroom is that you want to be ridding your body of physical tension as a preparatory activity. Besides, it might look a little strange if you’re tensing, holding, and releasing your major muscle groups while trying to hold loving eye contact with your partner in bed (e.g. “No honey, I’m not having a stroke. I'm just doing an exercise I read about on Ben's website.”).
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Sex Exercise #2: Modified Box Breathing
Ben has written about box breathing multiple times in the past so I won’t spend too much time on this point. The general gist of box breathing is four seconds in, four second hold, four seconds out, four second pause, repeat. 4 x 4 x 4 x 4, etc.
As I touched on briefly in the first point, having your breathing be shallow and rapid is a surefire way to speed up your arousal response, which sends you towards orgasm faster. So if you want to gain more control over your sexual stamina, practicing box breathing outside of the bedroom will give you a greater awareness and relationship to your breathing.
But wait! There’s a twist.
Instead of simply breathing in through your nose, or breathing so that your stomach moves, for greater sexual pleasure and bodily awareness, you want to be breathing deep down and imagining yourself breathing into your genitals.
I realize this might sound semi-woo-woo, but stay with me for a second.
On a day to day basis, so many of us are completely detached from our sexual energy. We often feel like we’re walking heads with hands, going through life as a series of thoughts and emotions. But we are also sexual beings.
So breathe down so deeply that you literally visualize life being breathed down into your genitals. You don’t even have to picture the breath going through your lungs and past your stomach, and instead you can purely envision that your genitals are your lungs and that you are breathing only into or with them.
It might sound crazy, until you try it. This is also something you can do at work, in public, or anywhere else you so desire without having to lug around any heavy workout gear.
Yep, genital box breathing. Try it.
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Sex Exercise #3: Masturbation
In general, most men that I’ve worked with want to slow down how quickly they orgasm, and most women that I’ve worked with want to speed up how quickly they orgasm. Masturbation can help us achieve both of these goals.
Now, before you skip this section because of any personal opposition you have to masturbation because you are married, please allow me to clarify that, like Ben writes about in this article about getting a stronger erection, I don’t endorse “cheating on your partner” by fantasizing about or surfing on the internet to view a host of other partners, but I do endorse using erotic photos of your partner or fantasizing about your partner to get you sexually aroused for this exercise.
There are many reasons that most of us have honed unproductive masturbatory habits throughout our lifetimes. For example, many men (when they started masturbating as teens) raced towards orgasm because they didn’t want to get caught by their parents. Also, many women were socialized and conditioned to think that masturbation wasn’t right or wasn't moral or wasn't lady-like for them to engage in. Regardless of what habits or beliefs were bestowed upon us in our younger years, we can undo them by setting aside time for masturbation.
I’ll dive into two separate exercises here for men and women, but you may benefit from both of them depending on what issues you are currently experiencing.
The 9-5 Technique (for men)
For most men, increasing sexual stamina and gaining more control over their orgasms is of the utmost importance.
One of the best exercises I give to my clients is something I call the “9-5 technique”.
It basically goes like this…
You masturbate to arousal and intentionally raise and lower your level of sexual arousal by self-stimulating. If you think of your arousal level on a scale of 1-10 (1 being making a sandwich, and 10 being having an orgasm) then you want to be repeatedly raising and lowering your arousal from between 9 and 5… up and down, up and down, on repeat for anywhere from 10-45 minutes. Some people call this “edging”, as in finding and riding the edge before you climax.
This technique is great exercise, it’s a fantastic way to re-awaken your body, you get more awareness and control over your orgasmic ‘point of no return’, and it re-wires your mind so you're not just thinking of sexual arousal as something that you want to get rid of and climax as soon as possible. The point is to take your time, and to re-sensitize yourself to your own body.
Setting Aside Time To Re-Awaken Your Body (for women)
Many women, through years or decades of unfortunate social conditioning, have been trained to essentially be numb from the neck down. Often, women’s sexuality is so heavily shamed and regulated from a young age that it takes a lot of work to re-awaken your relationship to your sexual body.
One of the best things that you can do as a woman to take your sexuality back (and to take it to new heights) is to regularly set aside time to get comfortable pleasuring yourself for extended periods of time.
Get yourself into a comfortable position and do whatever it takes to discover or re-discover what turns you on. Maybe you’ll need to invest in some new toys. Maybe you’ll want to play around with the texture and quality of touch that you use to masturbate. Maybe you need to play around with different sexual thoughts or fantasies. The options are limitless, as no other person in the world has the same sexual arousal triggers as you do. So play around! And have fun with it.
The point isn’t to see how quickly you can orgasm, how many times you orgasm, or whether or not you can orgasm at all. Instead, the overarching intention you want to be bringing to your sessions is one of exploration.
The greater awareness you have to what works for you when it comes to your sexual arousal, the better you’ll be at being able to communicate that to your partner or giveyourself orgasms during sexual play with your partner.
Bonus tip: Want something a bit more natural than a liquid base lubricant? Organic coconut oil or organic avocado oil both work well as personal lubricants (for personal use only, not for use with condoms since oils can break down latex) and present far fewer health issues.
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Sex Exercise #4: Meditation
For men and women, one of the fastest ways to be disconnected from our bodies and our sexual pleasure is to be stuck in our heads.
The constant chatter of our thoughts can get in the way of receiving sexual pleasure faster than you can say “Did I remember to fold the laundry this morning?”
While it might not make you work up a huge sweat, meditation is a great way to quiet the noise between your ears. Even doing as little as 5-10 minutes per day can work wonders for the amount of presence you can translate into your sex life.
So which form of meditation works best for sex?
Because most of our education and social conditioning when it comes to sex tends to disconnect us from our bodies, I find that the best form of meditation you can do is a modified mindfulness meditation that is focused on the breath and body.
Breathe steadily in through your nose while you feel your stomach and chest expanding, pause for a moment, and then breathe out through your nose while continually keeping your attention on the rising and falling of your stomach. Overexaggerate your breaths at the beginning of the meditation to heighten your awareness of how much every part of your body moves when you're meditating in this way, letting your breathing pattern take on a more natural rhythm as you continue on.
The main focus is your bodily felt sensations. Be aware of how much of your body is affected by your mindful breathing. Ben has an upcoming podcast with sex coach Kim Anami in which they talk quite a bit about meditation, so stay tuned for that coming soon on Ben's free podcast on iTunes.
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Sex Exercise #5: Ben's “Look-Good-Naked” Protocol
Things like jogging, dancing, swimming, skipping, or boxing all increase blood flow, eliminate stress, and keep your testosterone (the hormone largely responsible for sexual desire in both men and women) levels thriving.
So make sure you’re keeping up your general cardiovascular exercise to keep your body working in tip-top shape. In truth, anything that you do to exercise regularly, eat well, and sleep well will all help to keep your sexual desire in a healthy state.
But if you really want the ultimate routine for cardiovascular endurance, muscular endurance and aesthetics, spelled out step-by-step and based on scientific research that shows how to get fit using the minimal amount of exercise, then follow Ben’s “Look-Good-Naked” protocol.
Another excellent resource is the foam rolling workout “5 Little-Known Ways To Biohack Your Workouts, Enhance Your Exercise Productivity & Maximize Your Fitness“. Foam rolling (and you know this if you've ever done it) actually involves twisting, thrusting and moving your body very similar to the way you move it during sex. Here's the workout from that article, which conveniently combines foam rolling with cardiovascular and muscular moves. This one will turn you into a sex machine.
Perform 20-30 “passes” with the foam roller on each muscle group outlined below. One “pass” means would mean rolling up the muscle group and back down the muscle group one time. Complete each station below once, progressing from one station to the next with minimal rest.
Station 1: 10 burpees. Foam roll achilles and calf R side.
Station 2: 10 burpees. Foam roll achilles and calf L side.
Station 3: Foam roll hamstring R side. 20 high leg swings R leg forward to backwards.
Station 4: Foam roll hamstring L side. 20 high leg swings L leg forward to backwards.
Station 5: 10 burpees. Foam roll R outside of hip.
Station 6: 10 burpees. Foam roll L outside of hip.
Station 7: Foam roll IT band R side. 20 side-to-side leg swings R leg.
Station 8: Foam roll IT band L side. 20 side-to-side leg swings L leg.
Station 9: 10 burpees. Foam roll R adductors/inside of thighs.
Station 10: 10 burpees. Foam roll L adductors/inside of thighs.
Station 11: 50 jumping jacks. Foam roll back bottom-to-top.
Station 12: 50 jumping jacks. Foam roll entire R shoulder complex.
Station 13: 50 jumping jacks. Foam roll entire L shoulder complex.
Station 14: 10 burpees. Foam roll neck (back, L side, R side)
Station 15: 10 burpees. Foam roll entire front of quads.
If you want videos or demonstrations of any of the foam roller exercises above, then you can click here for a series of videos from Ben. By the way, you get extra fitness bonus points if you do this routine in a dry or infrared sauna.
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Sex Exercise #6: Forearm Furls
Whether you’re looking to have lasting power in your forearms in order to manually stimulate your partner, to support yourself or your partner for a specific position, you’re exploring their G-spot (which absolutely can take some muscular endurance for longer sessions), or you’re holding yourself up against a wall, the kitchen counter, the laundry machine, etc., forearm strength can be a vital element to a fun and stimulating sex life.
The best solution I have found for all of the above? Forearm curls.
Incorporate these bad-boys into one of your upper-body days as an isolated movement, and you’ll notice more lasting power in no time. Besides, it’s no fun having to stop a sexual activity because your hand/wrist/forearm is cramping up (especially if your partner was about to climax).
Other decent moves include sandbag carries, frequent use of a “Captains-Of-Crush” device, pinch grip deadlifts with a couple of weight plates, hanging from a towel wrapped around a pull-up bar for maximum time, and a Tabata set of kettlebell swings with both hands wrapped around the kettlebell.
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Sex Exercise #7. Kegel Exercises
Ben wrote about his experience with the penis strengthening Private Gym recently, so you might already be familiar with kegel exercises.
Kegel exercises are a way to strengthen your pubococcygeus muscles (or PC muscles). Your PC muscle is a hammock-like muscle that cradles from your tail bone to your pubic bone (kind of like thong underwear, but just the bottom part).
To get an introductory relationship to your PC muscle, flex your PC muscle several times whenever you go pee (try to stop and start the flow of urine 5-7 times per pee-session). When you’re ready for something more advanced, you can either start a weighted jade egg practice if you’re a female, or, for men, you can either pick up the Private Gym that Ben wrote about, or you can drape soaking wet hand towels over your erection and do a kind of modified penile ‘bicep curl’ where your flex your PC muscle and make the towel lift up. It might sound funny now, but just wait until you have a six-pack in your pants.
The juice is definitely worth the squeeze with this one. You’ll have greater sexual stamina, firmer erections, and more intense and pleasurable orgasms in a matter of weeks if you do this one right.
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Summary
In this article, I made many references to the idea that men, in general, need help relaxing and slowing down in their race to orgasm, and that women, in general, need help relaxing their mind and body in order to achieve orgasms.
While this generalization holds true for many people, it could just as easily be the opposite for you on the individual level.
So take whatever resonates with you, and ignore the rest. Or pass it on to your significant other! Maybe they’ll pick up on certain points that didn’t mean as much to you. That’s the beauty of being open, intentional, and honest about our communication when it comes to our sex lives:you never know what you don’t know until you have the conversation.
I hope this article has opened your eyes to the various ways you can sexually strengthen yourself, and enjoy greater ripples of sexual pleasure.
I wish you the best of luck in having a more deeply fulfilling sex life.
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Final Note From Ben
Want more from Jordan?
Then check out his Amazon author page here. His best-selling books, and the ones most relevant to the material you’ve just read, are the following:
Keep Her Captivated: Lead Your Relationship To Its Maximum Potential
50 Powerful Date Ideas (I absolutely love this book for giving me date ideas to surprise and enchant my wife)
50 Romantic Gestures That Will Make Your Partner Melt
Do you have questions, comments or feedback for me or Jordan about these seven exercises for sexual stamina and bedroom endurance? Leave your thoughts below!